OTA demos in stores
 

L Alpert wrote:
Bob Miller wrote:
NadCixelsyd wrote:
I get my reception OTA. When I saw how much better it was, I dumped
cable. I find USA OTA-HD to be just fine and I'm saving $1000 a
year. I have no idea what 8-VSB and COFDM are or what the differences
are.
I can not speak to the merits of one over the other. If COFDM is
better, I don't know what I'm missing. However, I'm really getting
annoyed at Bob Miller's soap-box bashing of 8-VSB. Like it or not,
it's the law. Complain to your Congressman because we, here, have no
control over the issue. I know I'm not alone he we're tired of
your bitching.

"We" have all the control over the issue. We live in a democracy.
Unless of course "We" don't think we have any control. In that case
we are f*****!!!

A billion or more people in China lived their lives until recently not
knowing what they were "missing".

I'm sure once they were enlightened on the difference between COFDM and
8-VSB they were finally able to sleep at night.

If you are easily "annoyed" by those who might be telling you what you
are missing you probably will miss a lot.

Just annoyed at someone bashing something that seems to work fine for most.
Even then, the US modulation scheme is not a quality of life issue, but
rather, a mere technicality.

Now that the Chinese have some knowledge of what they have missed in
the past they are not settling for garbage like 8-VSB. Their US
trained scientist and engineers are demanding the best and they have
it in DMB-T/H, the Chinese HDTV modulation.

And now their lives will be much better.

Bob Miller


I don't agree that it is a "mere technicality". Free OTA TV is at stake
and I believe it is very important to keep it alive.

It was almost dead with NTSC and now 8-VSB is killing it.

8-VSB doesn't seem to work fine for most. MOST don't even know it exist.
MOST will never hear about it since MOST retailers and manufacturers are
keeping VERY quiet about it.

The word of mouth on 8-VSB has been horrid. Early adopters while
praising HD and bragging about all the problems they have gone through
and the dozen different 8-VSB receivers they have had to buy along with
the 15 different antennas and all the jargon have done their VERY BEST
TO SINK THIS SHIP.

And it is going down. As it was meant to do by the parties with special
interest in its demise.

You call what I am doing bashing. It is more like truth telling. You
have to have blinders on to not see the insanity that is the present
course of the US transition.

Mandates and subsidized receivers after 9 years of stagnation. 6-7-8
generations of receivers and we still have customers waiting in eager
anticipation for the next great receiver that will finally conquer
multipath, static multipath, not even a prayer for dynamic multipath
unless you are talking about A-VSB or the other 20 proposals, all bit
hogs, that are being proposed for 8-VSB to be able to compete in the
coming mobile/portable market.

8-VSB, HDTV and portable mobile don't mix. If you want mobile with
8-VSB, and ALL broadcasters are ga-ga over it, you have to say good bye
to HD. Won't work together.

Sooner or later broadcasters have to face the music. 8-VSB is a disaster
both in interference issues, reception issues, mobile issue and consumer
acceptance issues.

It just doesn't' work. It just is not going to make it.

The politicians are starting to understand this and the fear quotient is
rising.

The end is near.

Bob Miller

OTA demos in stores
 

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 15:24:05 -0400 L Alpert wrote:

| Just annoyed at someone bashing something that seems to work fine for most.
| Even then, the US modulation scheme is not a quality of life issue, but
| rather, a mere technicality.

8VSB has its flaws, too. For example, it would not be a good choice for
replacing FM radio with digital radio. COFDM would definitely be better
in that case. This is because COFDM does better in mobile reception
situations, which is a much greater percentage of FM radio than it is
of OTA TV.

The thing is, they are actually fairly close in all aspects of performance.
But in the end I believe 8VSB edged out COFDM in the aspects that the USA
has that other countries typically do not: larger transmission zones that
involve more distant reception, as opposed to dozens to hundreds of small
relay stations for each broadcaster. There didn't seem to be much interest
in changing that (possibly due to the extensive investment and maintenance
costs involved).

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

Finally: a store hooks up an outside antenna
 

On 29 Jun 2007 12:52:11 GMT wrote:

| Has anyone, anywhere in the USA, seen any stores actually hooking up an
| antenna, inside or outside, and showing to consumers just how well OTA
| digital and high definition TV really works?

I was talking to the assistant manager of a big box store near here (one
where weeks before a sales person said that over the air reception was
not possible in their location). He mentioned they actually did have a
small antenna on the roof and a coax from it coming in near the largest
screen TV. They had hooked it up for the Super Bowl so store staff could
watch it while at work that day (apparently the cable was only carrying
in SD). I suggested trying it on other channels and he said sure. So he
got it hooked back up to one of the big sets. They were able to get the
signals from over 15 stations all around the area, some in directions the
antenna was not facing.

I did see one problem why the store might not want to routinely do this.
The channel selection logic (it was a Samsung TV) interleaved between
analog and digital as the channel was changed. The analog signals were,
as expected, rather lousy. TVs might get left on those channels and that
could steer people away from those sets without actually trying to change
the channel. Hopefully there would be a way in setup to disable analog
reception (not needed after Feb 17, 2009).

I also noticed a disadvantage that most of the sets had: only one RF input.
People with crappy cable (and most cable systems are crappy) might still
want to supplement cable with OTA, especially for channels the cable system
was not carrying in HD. Or they might want to get some of the subchannels
the cable systems might not even carry at all. They would then have to
use the cable company box for tuning on cable, which increases the crap
factor. Fortunately most big screen TVs now have two HDMI inputs and a
few even have three HDMI inputs.

Still, zero portable DVD/TV combos that include a digital tuner.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

OTA demos in stores
 

Bob Miller wrote:
L Alpert wrote:
Bob Miller wrote:
NadCixelsyd wrote:
I get my reception OTA. When I saw how much better it was, I
dumped cable. I find USA OTA-HD to be just fine and I'm saving
$1000 a year. I have no idea what 8-VSB and COFDM are or what the
differences are.
I can not speak to the merits of one over the other. If COFDM is
better, I don't know what I'm missing. However, I'm really getting
annoyed at Bob Miller's soap-box bashing of 8-VSB. Like it or not,
it's the law. Complain to your Congressman because we, here, have
no control over the issue. I know I'm not alone he we're tired
of your bitching.

"We" have all the control over the issue. We live in a democracy.
Unless of course "We" don't think we have any control. In that case
we are f*****!!!

A billion or more people in China lived their lives until recently
not knowing what they were "missing".

I'm sure once they were enlightened on the difference between COFDM
and 8-VSB they were finally able to sleep at night.

If you are easily "annoyed" by those who might be telling you what
you are missing you probably will miss a lot.

Just annoyed at someone bashing something that seems to work fine
for most. Even then, the US modulation scheme is not a quality of
life issue, but rather, a mere technicality.

Now that the Chinese have some knowledge of what they have missed in
the past they are not settling for garbage like 8-VSB. Their US
trained scientist and engineers are demanding the best and they have
it in DMB-T/H, the Chinese HDTV modulation.

And now their lives will be much better.

Bob Miller


I don't agree that it is a "mere technicality". Free OTA TV is at
stake and I believe it is very important to keep it alive.

And it is alive and quite well.


It was almost dead with NTSC and now 8-VSB is killing it.

8-VSB doesn't seem to work fine for most. MOST don't even know it
exist. MOST will never hear about it since MOST retailers and
manufacturers are keeping VERY quiet about it.

The word of mouth on 8-VSB has been horrid. Early adopters while
praising HD and bragging about all the problems they have gone through
and the dozen different 8-VSB receivers they have had to buy along
with the 15 different antennas and all the jargon have done their
VERY BEST TO SINK THIS SHIP.

And it is going down. As it was meant to do by the parties with
special interest in its demise.

You call what I am doing bashing. It is more like truth telling. You
have to have blinders on to not see the insanity that is the present
course of the US transition.

Telling the truth is saying one's piece and being done with it, not
consistently badgering everyone with your own preferences. It's not even
bashing, it's to the point of whining.


Mandates and subsidized receivers after 9 years of stagnation. 6-7-8
generations of receivers and we still have customers waiting in eager
anticipation for the next great receiver that will finally conquer
multipath, static multipath, not even a prayer for dynamic multipath
unless you are talking about A-VSB or the other 20 proposals, all bit
hogs, that are being proposed for 8-VSB to be able to compete in the
coming mobile/portable market.

8-VSB, HDTV and portable mobile don't mix. If you want mobile with
8-VSB, and ALL broadcasters are ga-ga over it, you have to say good
bye to HD. Won't work together.

Sooner or later broadcasters have to face the music. 8-VSB is a
disaster both in interference issues, reception issues, mobile issue
and consumer acceptance issues.

It just doesn't' work. It just is not going to make it.

The politicians are starting to understand this and the fear quotient
is rising.

The end is near.


It's TV, nothing more, nothing less. Get over it.

Bob Miller

OTA demos in stores
 

Bob Miller wrote:

I don't agree that it is a "mere technicality". Free OTA TV is at stake
and I believe it is very important to keep it alive.

It was almost dead with NTSC and now 8-VSB is killing it.

Wrong, but then you were wrong about a lot of things,
like which modulation scheme to back.

8-VSB doesn't seem to work fine for most. MOST don't even know it exist.
MOST will never hear about it since MOST retailers and manufacturers are
keeping VERY quiet about it.

Right. You are delirious.

The word of mouth on 8-VSB has been horrid. Early adopters while
praising HD and bragging about all the problems they have gone through
and the dozen different 8-VSB receivers they have had to buy along with
the 15 different antennas and all the jargon have done their VERY BEST
TO SINK THIS SHIP.

Wrong again. Lots of people know how great ota is.
They have no idea it's 8-VSB, and they don't care.

And it is going down. As it was meant to do by the parties with special
interest in its demise.

You mean you? You are nothing!

You call what I am doing bashing. It is more like truth telling. You
have to have blinders on to not see the insanity that is the present
course of the US transition.

It's more like you are full of ****.

Mandates and subsidized receivers after 9 years of stagnation. 6-7-8
generations of receivers and we still have customers waiting in eager
anticipation for the next great receiver that will finally conquer
multipath, static multipath, not even a prayer for dynamic multipath
unless you are talking about A-VSB or the other 20 proposals, all bit
hogs, that are being proposed for 8-VSB to be able to compete in the
coming mobile/portable market.

8-VSB, HDTV and portable mobile don't mix. If you want mobile with
8-VSB, and ALL broadcasters are ga-ga over it, you have to say good bye
to HD. Won't work together.

Who cares if 8-VSB is portable? My couch doesn't have wheels.

Sooner or later broadcasters have to face the music. 8-VSB is a disaster
both in interference issues, reception issues, mobile issue and consumer
acceptance issues.

It just doesn't' work. It just is not going to make it.

It does work, and it already made it.

The politicians are starting to understand this and the fear quotient is
rising.

What?

The end is near.

Bob Miller

You mean you are finally going to kill yourself?

Chip

--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Usenet Newsgroup Service $9.95/Month 30GB

Finally: a store hooks up an outside antenna
 

wrote:
On 29 Jun 2007 12:52:11 GMT wrote:

| Has anyone, anywhere in the USA, seen any stores actually hooking up an
| antenna, inside or outside, and showing to consumers just how well OTA
| digital and high definition TV really works?

I was talking to the assistant manager of a big box store near here (one
where weeks before a sales person said that over the air reception was
not possible in their location). He mentioned they actually did have a
small antenna on the roof and a coax from it coming in near the largest
screen TV. They had hooked it up for the Super Bowl so store staff could
watch it while at work that day (apparently the cable was only carrying
in SD). I suggested trying it on other channels and he said sure. So he
got it hooked back up to one of the big sets. They were able to get the
signals from over 15 stations all around the area, some in directions the
antenna was not facing.

I did see one problem why the store might not want to routinely do this.
The channel selection logic (it was a Samsung TV) interleaved between
analog and digital as the channel was changed. The analog signals were,
as expected, rather lousy. TVs might get left on those channels and that
could steer people away from those sets without actually trying to change
the channel. Hopefully there would be a way in setup to disable analog
reception (not needed after Feb 17, 2009).

I also noticed a disadvantage that most of the sets had: only one RF
input. People with crappy cable (and most cable systems are crappy) might
still want to supplement cable with OTA, especially for channels the
cable system was not carrying in HD. Or they might want to get some of
the subchannels the cable systems might not even carry at all. They
would then have to use the cable company box for tuning on cable, which
increases the crap factor. Fortunately most big screen TVs now have two
HDMI inputs and a few even have three HDMI inputs.

Still, zero portable DVD/TV combos that include a digital tuner.

I'm glad that you finally found somewhere to see ota in a store.
At first you wanted a portable 20" tv, now it has to have a dvd player?

Chip

--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Usenet Newsgroup Service $9.95/Month 30GB

Finally: a store hooks up an outside antenna
 

On 1 Jul 2007 22:43:11 GMT, wrote:

On 29 Jun 2007 12:52:11 GMT wrote:

| Has anyone, anywhere in the USA, seen any stores actually hooking up an
| antenna, inside or outside, and showing to consumers just how well OTA
| digital and high definition TV really works?

I was talking to the assistant manager of a big box store near here (one
where weeks before a sales person said that over the air reception was
not possible in their location). He mentioned they actually did have a
small antenna on the roof and a coax from it coming in near the largest
screen TV. They had hooked it up for the Super Bowl so store staff could
watch it while at work that day (apparently the cable was only carrying
in SD). I suggested trying it on other channels and he said sure. So he
got it hooked back up to one of the big sets. They were able to get the
signals from over 15 stations all around the area, some in directions the
antenna was not facing.

I did see one problem why the store might not want to routinely do this.
The channel selection logic (it was a Samsung TV) interleaved between
analog and digital as the channel was changed. The analog signals were,
as expected, rather lousy. TVs might get left on those channels and that
could steer people away from those sets without actually trying to change
the channel. Hopefully there would be a way in setup to disable analog
reception (not needed after Feb 17, 2009).

I also noticed a disadvantage that most of the sets had: only one RF input.
People with crappy cable (and most cable systems are crappy) might still
want to supplement cable with OTA, especially for channels the cable system
was not carrying in HD. Or they might want to get some of the subchannels
the cable systems might not even carry at all. They would then have to
use the cable company box for tuning on cable, which increases the crap
factor. Fortunately most big screen TVs now have two HDMI inputs and a
few even have three HDMI inputs.

Still, zero portable DVD/TV combos that include a digital tuner.

I'm concerned that you have wasted way too much time of the poor
store personnel when they could have been helping a customer who would
actually buy something.

Are you aware of how little profit margin there is on what you are
shopping for? Are you aware how much they have to spend on rent and
electricity. Are your aware how much it costs to put an employee on
the floor to answer really dumb questions?

You are not a very nice person.

OTA demos in stores
 

On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:25:33 GMT Bob Miller wrote:

| I don't agree that it is a "mere technicality". Free OTA TV is at stake
| and I believe it is very important to keep it alive.
|
| It was almost dead with NTSC and now 8-VSB is killing it.

I don't see any evidence of that whatsoever. I see evidence that stupid
programming could be killing OTA, or more specifically, more and better
programming choices elsewhere, as well as things like internet, etc.
But I know of no one abandoning OTA because 8-VSB was chosen. In fact
it seems some are returning to it. One person remarked, when I got the
store manager to hook a big HDTV set to the antenna, that he didn't
really need cable anymore.


| 8-VSB doesn't seem to work fine for most. MOST don't even know it exist.
| MOST will never hear about it since MOST retailers and manufacturers are
| keeping VERY quiet about it.

Stores are not demonstrating OTA simply because of corporate policies.
They want a _consistent_ content that shows off the bigger sets more
to move buyers to higher end units.


| The word of mouth on 8-VSB has been horrid. Early adopters while
| praising HD and bragging about all the problems they have gone through
| and the dozen different 8-VSB receivers they have had to buy along with
| the 15 different antennas and all the jargon have done their VERY BEST
| TO SINK THIS SHIP.

The problems appear to be going away. It appears that any such problems
were "baby teething" type problems. Stations that had what I would call
"horrible" analog pictures coming in were solid on digital from the same
station. I doubt all the stations were drastically exceeding their
licensed digital channel power.


| And it is going down. As it was meant to do by the parties with special
| interest in its demise.
|
| You call what I am doing bashing. It is more like truth telling. You
| have to have blinders on to not see the insanity that is the present
| course of the US transition.

What you are saying simply doesn't match the observed facts.


| Mandates and subsidized receivers after 9 years of stagnation. 6-7-8
| generations of receivers and we still have customers waiting in eager
| anticipation for the next great receiver that will finally conquer
| multipath, static multipath, not even a prayer for dynamic multipath
| unless you are talking about A-VSB or the other 20 proposals, all bit
| hogs, that are being proposed for 8-VSB to be able to compete in the
| coming mobile/portable market.

I'll have to wait until I get my own DTV at home to make continuous
observation reports. But from what I see so far, digital OTA is going
to be a noticeable improvement over analog OTA, analog cable, and even
digital cable (my brother has that and pictures break up a lot on most
of the channels).


| 8-VSB, HDTV and portable mobile don't mix. If you want mobile with
| 8-VSB, and ALL broadcasters are ga-ga over it, you have to say good bye
| to HD. Won't work together.

Have I ever recommended 8-VSB for mobile service?

You do understand I'm talking about TV to the home, right?

I would like to have FM radio go digital. But in that case I do want it
to use a modulation scheme appropriately designed for mobile reception.


| Sooner or later broadcasters have to face the music. 8-VSB is a disaster
| both in interference issues, reception issues, mobile issue and consumer
| acceptance issues.

The only disaster I see looming is all the people with analog OTA that
are not aware of the coming shutdown. Hopefully the TV stations will
have continuous crawling text on the screen a few months before it all
happens, warning about it.


| It just doesn't' work. It just is not going to make it.

It's working quite well, actually.


| The politicians are starting to understand this and the fear quotient is
| rising.

The only issue they will have is all the old folks that will be calling
Wednesday, Feb 18, 2009, complaining about why there is no more TV.


| The end is near.

Sorry, Bob, but it looks like you are not going to have any spectrum spoils
to plunder as a result of 8-VSB. Sure, they took out channels 52-69, now.
But 8-VSB stations can fit well side by side, so after the analog stations
go off, there will actually be some spectrum available for additional TV
broadcast applicants. I know of at least 6 channels that could be picked
up in or near the area I live in after 2009-2-17, and maybe more in LP.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

Finally: a store hooks up an outside antenna
 

On 02 Jul 2007 00:53:44 GMT wrote:

| I'm glad that you finally found somewhere to see ota in a store.
| At first you wanted a portable 20" tv, now it has to have a dvd player?

Nothing has changed. I want a small portable TV _today_ and will buy a
decent one right now if I can find it. I don't need HD for that, but it
should be able to downconvert any HD to whatever screen size it has (such
as native 240 or 160 lines). Combining it would a portable DVD player is
a plus. I have a future interest in a larger HD TV, but that may will be
a year or so off. I have an interest in getting FTA satellite sooner.
But I would have bought the portable TV as much as 2 years ago, if it had
been available with ATSC tuner.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

Finally: a store hooks up an outside antenna
 

On Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:11:12 -0500 ValveJob wrote:

| I'm concerned that you have wasted way too much time of the poor
| store personnel when they could have been helping a customer who would
| actually buy something.

I might well buy something soon.


| Are you aware of how little profit margin there is on what you are
| shopping for? Are you aware how much they have to spend on rent and
| electricity. Are your aware how much it costs to put an employee on
| the floor to answer really dumb questions?

With dumb answers?


| You are not a very nice person.

I'd do it again. Just to be fair I probably will at other stores.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|